Purchasing previous rental car?

[kyparrish]

Does anybody have any opinion on purchasing a previous rental car? We're looking at a 2008 Altima 2.5S w/ 28k miles. It's listed at $13.9k, I don't know what the dealers fees are yet.

Also, does anybody know if the original factory powertrain (5 years/60k miles) would transfer to us? I didn't know if there was a rule that you couldn't transfer original warranties if the car was a rental.

Thanks!

I'm leaving this open because there are specific questions about a specific car. Any comments about the general suitability of rental vehicles should take place in the thread that already exists. If someone has information about the warranty or about issues that are specific to the car in question, he or she is more than welcome to post that information here.

If this ends up in a generic discussion about rental cars, it will be locked since we already have a thread about that.

Zenmervolt - AnandTech Garage Moderator

 

[RU482]

the factory warranty will transfer. If you go to sell it private party, and someone runs a carfax check, it will be noted that the car was a rental.
Some rentals get beat, some don't. Some used cars get beat just as bad, and are probably maintained less. meh

 

[CptCrunch]

I always thought the rentals didn't come with a warranty, which is why they are purchased so cheap from the manufacturers. I have nothing to back this up, so please tell me i'm right or wrong.

We just had a thread about this the other day, hit and miss with rentals/fleet vehicles. My fiancee has a ex-fleet 2005 ford taurus and it runs just fine

 

[kyparrish]

Thanks guys. RU482, thanks for the help with the warranty. I had been googling like crazy and only found 1 page that said the warranty would transfer (but found nothing that said otherwise).

13.9 seem like a good price to start at? I'm anxious to see the fees that pop up on the deal sheet.

 

[StageLeft]

Warranty is fine. WHo are you buying this from? BTW, you can call up nissan warranty service with the VIN and they can confirm with the vin right there and there what remains.

If you buy from nissan you may get a nice long powertrain warranty past the $60k.

THe price on this is nice. I was looking at a 2008 altima with 19k miles and they wouldn't budge below about $16.5, but then they didn't get the sale. If you can get below the price you're talking about here you'd really be doing well.

There was a rental thread very recently, it's probably even still on the front page. In short, rental is fine based on those who've had them.

 

[lurk3r]

08 is a first model year too, price is great, have a mechanic look it over, resale will be crap, but the price is so low already it makes up for the low resale (because as others mentioned it shows a rental in carfax). Even if it has been driven like its stolen, unless they were curb hopping there's not much you can do to hurt the car.

 

[Gillbot]

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2271232&enterthread=y